This is the Tom Hartman program.

Welcome back, Tom Hartman here with you, and so what's the deal with Social Security?

What's going forward with Social Security and Medicare?

We know that the Republicans were totally, you know, absolutely committed to privatizing

Social Security so much so that when George W. Bush won re-election in 2004 on the strength

of his being a wartime president, he said, I'm going to use my political capital to privatize

Social Security and went on like a 15-state tour to try to sell it.

It didn't work out all that well.

And then when Trump came into office, he put people in charge of Social Security who hate

Social Security at least as a public good.

So what's the status of all this right now?

On the line with us is our old buddy, Alex Lawson, the Executive Director of Social Security

Works, Social Security Works.org, and Strength in Social Security.org as well, SS Works is

the Twitter handle for that, and of course his personal Twitter handle is eight, law 202.

Alex, welcome back to the program.

What's the status of Trump appointees in the Social Security Administration and the Medicare

Administration?

Yeah, thanks Tom.

I wish I had better news to report, but unfortunately, it's been six months where Trump is no longer

the president, but his minions are still at the top of the Social Security Administration,

and they haven't changed their tune at all.

And in fact, it's gone to the point where we're having to really fight hard to put restrictions

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